[ALST-L] New at TOL

[lars at tol.cz]

Transitions Online (TOL) (http://www.tol.cz) is the leading Internet
magazine covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former
Soviet Union. If you aren't already a member, fill out our registration
form at <http://www.tol.cz/trialsubscr.html> to receive your free two-month
trial membership. If you'd like to become a TOL member right away, go to
<http://member.html>. And if you're a citizen of a post-communist country,
go to <http://www.tol.cz/trialsubscr2.html> to sign up for a FREE annual
membership.

This week at TOL:

In Their Own Words: Russia: "All Decent People Start Out in Intelligence"
http://www.tol.cz/itowa/mar00pu.html
"I personally burned a huge amount of material [after the Soviet Union's
collapse]," says acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a tell-all
book on his past (including time as a KGB officer in East Germany). "We
burned so much that the oven busted. We burned day and night. ... Amen!"
The book -- titled "In the First Person: Conversations with Vladimir Putin"
-- has recently been barred from publication by the Central Electoral
Commission, although Russian newspapers have serialized it. TOL excerpts
tales from Putin's secret past -- including his nearly four liters of beer
a day, his run-ins with angry German protesters, and his common ground with
Kissinger.

Features: Skeletons in the Closet
by Laszlo Szocs, with additional reporting by Andrej Krickovic
http://www.tol.cz/jul99/specr03001.html
Nothing much ever came from Croatia and Hungary's so-called strategic
partnership -- at best, a few fizzled business deals and a portfolio of
photo ops. But it's still unclear why Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
was so eager to promote partnership with the late Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman -- despite strident objections from pundits in Hungary as well as
the international community. For Tudjman, the reason was plain: the chance
to prove his country wasn't an international pariah.

Features: Back in the Saddle
by Vicken Cheterian
http://www.tol.cz/jul99/specr03002.html
Though its influence in Central Asia seemed to be decreasing throughout the
1990s, Russia can now look to a warmer embrace from the region's elite. The
main impetus for the change in heart was last year's increased Islamist
guerrilla activities in southern Kyrgyzstan and the Uzbek part of the
Ferghana Valley, but a return of pro-Russian sentiment has been welling up
for several years. Governments have clearly grown impatient with the West's
lack of interest in Central Asia -- not to mention the harsh criticism from
the United States and the OSCE for the region's democratic shortcomings.

Opinions: The Recovering Lion
by Aleksander Kaczorowski
http://www.tol.cz/opina/kacz.html
"Historically, relations [between Poland and Russia] have only been
friendly when either Poland didn't exist at all on maps ... or only
semi-existed," argues Kaczorowski, an editor at the Central European
Gazette, a supplement of the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. The
latest spat, he says, is in large part a demonstration of Russia's might.
When a lion is sick, the saying goes, even a mouse can beat it -- but
acting Russian President Vladimir Putin's thundering is a good indication
that the lion is well on the road to recovery.

Also in our Week in Review:
http://www.tol.cz/week.html
Macedonian women want jobs, not flowers for International Women's Day ...
Eighty-one killed in Ukrainian mining accident ... Orban says that Hungary
has had enough of EU power trips ... Russian investigative journalist
killed in a plane crash ... Poles want to ban porn ... Prostitutes in
Hungary get roaming privileges ... Czech farmers and railway workers go on
strike ... More Uzbeks go online ... Chisinau mayor urges bill-paying
Moldovans to sue gas companies ... Croatians protest Blaksic sentencing ...
Georgian voters put their hands up ... Nuclear sect is back in Lithuania
... Branding the opposition in Estonia ...

A Czech nonprofit dedicated to promoting independent journalism, TOL is
based in Prague and uses a network of local correspondents to provide
unique, cross-regional analysis.

We encourage you to visit our site and become part of a dynamic new media
project dedicated to building independent journalism in Central and Eastern
Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. And be sure to also visit
our partner sites:

- Central Europe Review (http://www.ce-review.org), the weekly Internet
journal of Central and East European politics, society, and culture

- The Network of Independent Journalists of Central and Eastern Europe
(NIJ), a weekly service run by the Croatian-based STINA press agency. To
subscribe to STINA's NIJ weekly service, giving you timely news of events
in the region, send an e-mail to: stina at zamir.net

ANNOUNCEMENT: ASN CONFERENCE

The Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) will be holding its
Fifth Annual World Convention, this year entitled "Identity and the State:
Nationalism and Sovereignty in a Changing World," from April 13-15, 2000,
at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University in New York City. The ASN is
the leading international scholarly organization dedicated to the study of
ethnicity and nationalism in the postcommunist world. This year's
convention will feature over 100 panels focusing on the Balkans, the
Caucasus, Central Asia, East-Central Europe, and the Russian Federation,
and bring together over 600 participants from all over the world. A number
of new documentaries from these regions will be shown concurrently. A
preliminary convention program is available on the web at:
<http://picce.uno.edu/ASN/ASNannualConf1.htm> For more information about
the convention program, please contact Dominique Arel, ASN Convention
Program Chair, at <darel at brown.edu>. For convention registration and other
information, please contact Gordon N. Bardos, ASN Executive Director, at
<gnb12 at columbia.edu>.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We apologize if you were INADVERTENTLY ADDED TO THIS LIST,
If you wish to unsubscribe, please, send a message to: mailto:lars at tol.cz?Subject=REMOVE%20RECIPIENT%20No.:%204672 lars at tol.cz with the following subject: "REMOVE RECIPIENT No.: 4672"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------